Table of Contents

Runes

Introduction

This guide does not go into game mechanics or give advice as to how to play the game. The guide will not teach you how to play any role and it will not teach you how to play any specific champ. There are PLENTY of other respectable guides that can do those things. This guide will teach you how to win. If you have ever played soloque in your whole life, you without a doubt know that the MOST TALENTED team does NOT always win. Why is that? Because they lack the skills this guide will go in-depth on: teamwork, compromise, the best mindset, cooperation, and much more.

I feel as if EVERYONE, no matter what elo, would dramatically benefit from reading this guide.

About Me

Who am I, and why should you listen to the words I'm about to spew into this guide? My summoner name is CIash and I main support. Before winter break started, I was in the 1400s. During the break, my friend and I had a contest to see who could get the highest elo, him being around 1700. I ended up getting 2000 the day before my break ended and he managed to climb to 1900s. I actually won my past ~13 ranked games going straight from ~1850 to ~2010.

From 1400 to 2000--600 elo--in less than a month playing support, unarguably the most team reliant role in order to win soloque. How? It's absolutely not because I am a good support. There are certainly hundreds maybe thousands of better supports in this game way below me in the elo ladder. Is it because I got lucky and got carried every game? That's what I thought it was at the start, but after being on so many large winning streaks and getting to 2k, I think I'm doing something right.

I'm sure you are tired of hearing my life story, so I'll actually get to the guide now. I'll separate the guide into four different segments: before the game, champion select, during the game, and after the game.

Before the game

This is when you are in queue (if your queues are long) or before you even hit Play Ranked. The most important thing to stress at this point is to keep a very calm, positive, open-minded attitude. Have some relaxing music playing in the background. Trust me, it increases your odds of winning by ~70%, just look at the graph:

DO NOT press Play Ranked with the thought, "Time to get another shitty team filled with trolls and feeders" and ABSOLUTELY DO NOT go into queue thinking along the lines of "I'm only going to play AP or else I'll troll pick". This game is a TEAM GAME. Yes, you've heard this many times before, I know. But how many of you actually take that to mind? Not many I'm sure. You would be surprised if you saw how much a positive, open-minded attitude will effect your gameplay and how much it betters your team.

Champion Select

"fuck...its this troll/bad/feeder from yesterday -_-"
You have no idea how many times I USED to say this out-loud whenever my queue popped. I now see that this attitude did NOTHING for me. It made me not want to try my hardest and severely hurt my elo. DO NOT DO THIS.

Champion Select is ALL about communication. I've had games where we said more in the champion select than throughout the whole game (thinking back, we won every single lane and they surrendered at 20.) This is the time to say what you want to play IN A KIND WAY:

Correct: I'd like to play AP please. Incorrect: AP MID OR FEED.

However, like I mentioned above, do not go into a game expecting to only play a certain type of champion. You MUST MUST MUST cooperate with your teammates. Ask everyone what they want to play during the banning phase. Be the bigger man; if someone wants to play your role, let him. "NO I DON'T BACK DOWN LIKE A PUSSY". If you feel like this, then try to view the situation like this(note: this does contradict some of what I've been saying, but it's only for the people with the I'M NOT A PUSSY mindset):

This guy says he is best with AP and you want to play AP. Who do you think is better at LEAGUE, you or him? HAHA, DUMB QUESTION, obviously you are the best. So, considering you are completely out of this chump's league, you play ALL roles better than he can. Let him play his AP while you show everyone on the team how support/top/AD/jungler is supposed to be played. After all, a "chain" is only as strong as its weakest "link", right? Here is a picture of a chain to prove my point:

Another important part of Champion Select is counter picking. That is, picking a champion who is able to counter an enemy champion picked previously. I'm not going to go into how to counter certain champions because there are so many different guides that have already done so, just look one up. A note of caution; however, if you know a certain enemy champion is countered by another champion, but you do not know how to play the champion, DO NOT play him. Instead, as your team if any of them are comfortable with him and chances are one of them will be. For example, if the enemy team first picks trynd, and you know malphite, a champion you have no idea how to play, is a direct counter to him (he is btw), say, "Is anyone comfortable playing malphite against trynd top?" DO NOT force anyone (yourself included) to play that specific counter--every champ has so many different counters that there has to be one someone on your team can play.

Along the lines of 'Don't play champs that are counters, but you lack experience', DO NOT play champions that are flavors of the month or are 'OP' if you do not know how to play him. "Why the fuck is this in the guide? this is common sense..." With the amount of people who do this, I would not call it common sense ._. If you think Kassadin is 'OP', do not practice him in rank. Play normals with friends until you feel comfortable enough with Kass to win in ranked.

Ingame

Now its time to actually play the game. Again, I'm not going to talk specifically about any roles or what to do. I feel as if the only way to actually increase your skill in this game is to practice--play more and more, learning how to win certain match-ups, how to counter certain team comps, etc. I will instead be describing several situations that you will definitively come across while playing soloque and explain how I would handle the situations:

Your allied lane is feeding

This doesn't happen much so I won't talk much about it.

You will be faced with this situation every game. Every game. If you are not, go grab your keys and drive to the nearest gas station and buy a lottery card. You are a very, very lucky man if you don't face this problem often. What is worst is how people handle this situation. 9 times out of 10, someone on your team will call out your feeder and tell him he is shit or that he should uninstall or quit the game. Do you honestly think that will help him win his lane and make him stop feeding? Do you think they don't know they are already doing bad, and they want you to remind them? INSTEAD of acting so condescending on your teammate, give him ADVICE as to how to stop feeding. For example, if your mid keeps getting ganked and keeps dying, just tell him to get two wards. If he keeps dying to mid's burst, just tell him to get some MR. If he is getting zoned hard by the enemy, ask the jungler to help his lane. Although his actions might not confirm it, he actually DOES want to win and get higher elo so he WILL probably listen to your advice if its logical.

Your support does not buy many wards

Well, I main support and literally 50% of my gold goes toward map control so my teammates do not face this problem much, but I have many friends who are always complaining about how they have no vision at all. Wards' importance should not be downplayed AT ALL. They allow you to know where the enemy team is which is crucial if you are losing. Instead of fighting 5v5, you can pick someone off whom you see on a ward and then your team's odds of winning a team fight have just increased by so much. They also allow for control of objectives (Blue, Red, Dragon, Baron). Controlling these objectives can literally be the sole reason you win the game. With all of that being said, if your support does not buy wards, your team is very dearly hurt from it. If you notice your support not buying a lot of wards, DO NOT yell at them in a condescending tone. Kindly ask them, "Could you please buy some wards" and you could also bring up why you need wards (for map control and everything I just talked about).

I've been focusing on the support role because they are supposed to buy MOST of the wards, not all of them. Everyone on the team is expected to contribute to the warding. Wards help you so much that it's unbelievable that some people do not buy them. Think about it, which would you rather have: 3 minutes of immunity from MOST ganks or 75 gold (~3-4 minions).

Your allied lane is getting outfarmed HARD

Because my main is Soraka, I'm always sitting there bot lane watching other lanes farm and see how they are doing in terms of cs. Tab is probably my most pressed key throughout the whole game because I like knowing how lanes are doing. It is inevitable that some of your lanes will get outcsed. For example, pretend you are the Trynd from the counterpicking example, and you have to v.s. a Malphite. You will lose. You have done nothing wrong so far--you were one of the first picks and the Malphite fifth picked to counter you. This is where most people play the lane wrong.

Whenever I watch a lane that got counterpicked hard, I always watch my lane just tower hugging and see them at half of the enemy (or a lot worse). Around 70% of the time my guy, the guy who got counterpicked, does not say anything. Hes half of the enemy team's lane, but he is not asking for any help. This is due to something called PRIDE. So many people who play this game are afraid to admit that they are losing and if they do they always blame something else--a scapegoat. So what can you do about it? hes not asking for any help or anything. Ask for him. Ask the jungler or even mid lane politely if one of them could help top lane (in this example) or if Trynd would like to swap with mid (in this example). You would be surprised if you knew how many times I'M (the bottom lane support) the reason that mid and top swapped because one or both of them were getting wrecked. Even though the Trynd has so much PRIDE that he won't admit he needs help, most of the time the player WILL switch lanes or respond to the gank because he knows it will help him.

My lanes actually won, but we have never grouped / we are not taking advantage of our advantage

This happens a lot for me. I always hear, "An Enemy Has Been Slain" or "An Ally Has Destroyed an Enemy Turret" in laning phase and our team's moral is usually very high in the laning phase. However, a lot of people do not know what to do once they got the lead. You MUST stress it. You must FORCE objectives or fights. Depending on which lanes are ahead and how far ahead they are. For example, if your mid lane is winning and your bot lane is doing good as well, it is time to do dragon. Get a pink or oracle and clear their vision of dragon which GREATLY lowers their desire to fight you. Most of the time if you start dragon at the right moment (their mid/bot doesn't have a lot of hp/mana, their mid/bot hasn't backed in a long time and yours is far ahead in items, your top has teleport and their doesn't, etc.) and your clear their vision of it, they will not fight you. Free 190 gold for everyone (total of 950 gold or 2-3 champion kills). Be sure to also time objectives so you can keep doing them and make your lead further and further (Dragon is 6 minutes, Buffs are 5, and Baron is 7).

Forcing fights is also an option. Forcing a fight is when you WANT to make the enemy team fight you. You want to do this when you are certain that you can beat them in a head-on 5v5. The most popular way to do this is to get oracle, clear all of the wards at baron (make sure you guys are all together when doing this) and then make it look like you guys are doing baron. The enemy team has to either give you guys the extremely powerful buff and the gold that comes along with it, or they must fight you. Typically right before starting the buff, your team would come up with a strategy (i.e.[champion with initiation], if they come, you ult them and we turn).

The final way to pressure them when you have the lead is to group and push. The whole idea is to get the +150 gold from towers and to aim for getting an inhibitor to allow super minions spawn. If the enemy team decides to defend their tower and fights you, you have just forced a fight and unless you guys play it badly, you should win. If they don't, free global gold.

You must try to convince your team to do these types of things when you have the lead in order to keep the lead.

Overview

Basically, what I'm trying to tell you is to keep a positive and nice attitude throughout the game. If you treat your teammates--the people who are in control of if you win or if you lose--like shit, they will probably not want you to win too badly.

Postgame

TIME TO FUCKING EXPLODE AND LET OUT ALL OF THE RAGE YOU STORED DURING THE GAME. The statistics chat is not reported, so you can talk all of the shit you want without any chance of punishment!!!!! I'm kidding of course, always abide by the summoners code.

Seriously though, now that the game is done, you are a free man. Your old teammates no longer decide the fate of your elo. If you want to tell your Morde who built a Warmogs that your dog with only three legs can play better than him, go ahead. If you want to tell the enemy mid that you've seen Ryze bot play better, now is your chance. I wouldn't, though, because you never know who will be on your team next game .

If you won, you are probably feeling good right about now, and you deserve to. However, if you lost, try to analyze WHY you lost. "I did everything this shitty guide told me to, but my team still went full retard -_-" You WILL have those games where you cannot win. EVERYONE will have those games: your teammate goes AFK or DCs; he decides that he doesn't want to play anymore and leaves you guys to 4v5; he gets tired of laning against an 'OP' champ and just starts feeding. Those kinds of people are inevitable. Just know, though, that matchmaking is NOT out to get you. Your 'Free Win', where the enemy team has the troll, will come. Just don't give up faith in the system or lose control and rage at your teammates next game because they die in lane. Just stay calm and remember all of the things this guide taught you, and I'm sure you will maybe possibly rise in elo.

Conclusions

In conclusion, I would just like to remind you all that the most important thing to winning soloque and easily attaining diamond is to

This guide although really pointless and obivous, does feature some great mindsets to have in soloQ. Although I dont really share you vision on some of it, I think it is great to make people that aren't smart enought to think of this on their own (really dumb people), aware of this.

I laughed that your main role is support. Support has virtually no impact on the game in low ELO. You got carried brobro.

Wards wont stop retards from being retards.

The only legit way to get out of ELO hell is to destroy your lane and then go roaming (while roaming you try to give kills to your teammates). Jungling is shit in soloQ because it depends too much on your lane not being shit.